A Familiar Set of the Shoulders
by Keynn
Summary: A collection of short ficlets, predominantly about the lieutenants, of roughly the same mood. Will occasionally be updated. Various pairings.
1. A Visitor (Momo and Izuru)

**1\. A Visitor**

Izuru and Momo

* * *

"It's okay," says Momo, softly, and she runs her hand through Izuru's hair; his head buried in the crook of her neck. She doesn't ask what it is. She's not sure she wants to know at all, they have each their own secrets which they bury like dead things and which haunt them like dead things, too.

Crawling to their beds at night, seeping rancid memories across their pillows. Momo breaths deep in the cool, black air and watches, mesmerized, when the breathe leaves like a white fog against the light of the moon. Izuru's arms are wrapped around her back, clutching at the fabric there. Momo has never seen him shed a tear, even now. Izuru screams, Izuru bites hard on Shuuhei's collar bone, drawing blood, Izuru sits fetal position in his office at two in the morning when he should be at home but Izuru does not shed tears.

Momo learns these things slowly, over time, and she loves Izuru on his bad days just like he loves her on the days she wants to rip her heart out of her chest, crying and hating herself for never once hating anyone else.

Life is hard sometimes, Momo learns. It always seemed before that life was only beautiful, but now she knows it is both, neither without the other. She hopes Izuru knows this, thinks he might not, wonders if he even cares. She won't force it on him.

Momo knows she is crying, now too, her cheeks are cold when the wind brushes against the moisture but she's not sad. When Izuru pulls away he says thanks quietly but his voice is always unearthly clear. Momo kisses him briefly on the cheek and then opens her door for him, pulling him by the hand off her porch to something less bitter cold. Momo is fire and life and warmth.

"Stay awhile," she smiles, "I'll make tea, let's play a board game." Izuru will, of course, beat her. The sun will be up in two hours and they will both be awake to see it, but _it's okay,_ thinks Momo. Whatever it is.

* * *

 _Consider this a stand-in until I'm able to write coherently again. I've got these cross-posted at ao3; but there isn't enough love for the lieutenants on this website and I enjoy being in pain._

 _Also, for those interested, I'll also be updating "Birds of a Feather" this week (2/29/16) so go check that out. It'll probably be Thursday, as that's when work is less ... everything._

 _For the remained of these ficlets, I'll try to keep author's notes to a minimum to avoid messing too much with word count ... but please, feel free to leave comments. Actually, I encourage it ... actually, I crave it._


	2. The Rock Skipper (Izuru and Rose)

**2\. The Rock Skipper**

 _Izuru and Rose (and Gin)_

* * *

Izuru's hand is clammy around the rock therein. When he throws it, it skirts over the mirrored surface of the lake three times and then disappears somewhere beneath it. Izuru looks at the water, swirling around his ankles and sighs and looks around and then reaches into the water, pulls out another rock, smooth as the surface of a table, flicks his wrist and watches it disappear, too. Everything disappears.

Izuru can feel Gin's fingers ghost across his shoulder blades, can feel the air chill around him like the coming of something sickly and full of death, but Izuru has been trained to embrace the crawling in his skin the same way he does any other anticipation and it is like wanting, but slightly more subdued, so he turns slower – expecting to see him there, and he's almost sad when there's nothing. Not Gin, just a gust of winter wind across his cheeks and everything is cold and everything is gray and the world is solid, but Izuru feels hollow.

He feels like he should repent for all his sins and the sins of his captain, but he doesn't want to. In some ways it is no more Gin's fault for being a traitor than it is Soul Society's fault for not catching him; everything slid along. The whole world is a snake, and everyone in it. Self-serving snakes. Izuru grabs another rock, it skids four times.

He never wants to see his friends get hurt. They don't deserve it. But Izuru is the husk of something once living which no longer is, and if they bury him under the corpses of other traitors, they'll be disposing of a body whose soul has already been torn from it.

Izuru's hands, unoccupied, wrap themselves around his torso, latch on to his biceps, claw into his skin, Izuru wants to die for following the devil to the gates of hell and crying when they wouldn't let him in. Something in him is worth something and he hates it.

The fingers which ghost across his neck now are warm and feather light.

"It's cold, Izuru," says Rose, voice warm. Izuru stares hard, forward, out deep into the lake where the rocks lay and no one will ever find them.

"I wanted to feel cold," says Izuru, "why else would I be here?"

"For the view, perhaps?" Rose takes his hand, and he leads Izuru back on to dry land, smiling pleasantly at him. "How beautiful."


	3. Outliers (Shuuhei and Nanao)

**3\. Outliers**

 _Shuuhei and Nanao_

* * *

Everything that Shuuhei has ever been, has been a shadow along the path of another.

Sometimes; when he sits alone atop the hills of the great world, expansive and endless in its possibilities, he wonders if he's not just the result of a hundred other lives. Somewhere along the way he lost his self among ideals of justice and hero worship. He feels tired. Tired and useless and foolish.

Shuuhei picks at the grass at his sides and falls back, heavy, onto the hard earth and watches the way the clouds roll across the blue sky. Soul society's sky is unearthly in its color - it is like looking at a painting of what a perfect sky should be. The sky is perfect and all the people under it are also perfect. And everyone has a perfect foil. And a perfect idea of what they are and who they are to others. The kenpachi, Zaraki. The healer, Unohana. Izuru's sword mimics the wielder and neither can bare their own weight so they befriend the woman who cannot be weighed down, Rangiku, whose life and sword slips through the cracks like sand and they are perfect companions. Momo has Captain Hitsugaya, they are fire and ice. The twin sword duo are as old as the shinigami themselves. Everyone has a place, thinks Shuuhei. They all serve a purpose.

Maybe Shuuhei's purpose will always be to play the pawn. Maybe he will vanish in the history books of a great power and his destiny is not to leave the mark, but to be the stepping stone for the person who will. Somehow, that seems fitting and it only stings half as much as Shuuhei expects it to.

"Good afternoon Hisagi-san," says Nanao. She is graceful when she sits beside him; she has a book in hand, she pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and she looks at him with a mirrored expression, like she knows every thought in his mind and all of those that have ever been.

"Ise-san," says Shuuhei and does not sit up. They don't run together, nor even in the same vicinity though they are roughly the same age. Nanao has been a solider all of her life… Shuuhei has not.

"Ise-san," says Shuuhei again, several minutes later after her book is open and she has made progress through its first few pages. She glances at him over the rim of her glasses, a question in her eyes and she waits for him to continue, but he falls short.

"You seem like you have a lot on your mind," says Nanao, saving him.

"Only recently," Shuuhei admits.

"Would it have been better if I hadn't intruded on you?" Asks Nanao, not unkind. She dog-ears her book and sets it aside. She is sitting with her legs folded under her and it is an art to maintain such a position for any length of time but she keeps it like a priestess and shows no sign of being bothered.

"It's hard to intrude on something that isn't anything," says Shuuhei. And then, after a pause: "I just wanted distance, sometimes I can't stand to be in the soul society." Nanao smiles secretly at him and he nearly misses it.

"It's the structure of it, isn't it?" She says. Shuuhei doesn't know how to respond but Nanao moves forward, to the precipice of their hill and gazes out to the white tower in the far distance. "Sometimes I forget that all of it is just a vast network of military precision. Every solider is a cog and it all moves effortlessly toward a task. I hate it, truthfully."

"Are you allowed to say that?" Shuuhei grins, joining her at the edge.

"No," Nanao smiles, "no I don't think the captains, or other vice captains would think well of it. But I think I know you…" Nanao stops short and looks at him, " I think everyone comes together just a little too well down there. I don't often feel as cohesive. I have always been an outlier … Partly by choice," Nanao admits.

"I think I might be an outlier too," says Shuuhei, thinking. It feels like there's no reason to stay and no place to go if he leaves. The world has taken his life and there's nothing to do with it now but to dwindle it down and pray that someone, anyone, finds worth in him and wants him and wants to know him too. Shuuhei doesn't want to be a person dependent on other people but he doesn't know that he can be anything without them. Just a shadow on a path with no shape and form of its own.

"Even so," says Nanao, saving him again.


	4. Idyll (Rose and Izuru)

**4\. Idyll**

 _Rose and Izuru  
_

* * *

Izuru's voice is yellow and blue, like hot flames or flowers, and Rose often listens to the fukutaichou talk as the bursts of colors come to life before him. Izuru is literal art. Every movement, every sound, every bite and quip comes off him like some flowing liquid taking shape, endeavoring to make the world a little more beautiful. Izuru, himself, the essence, is hideously self-destructive and void - a hollow vessel, life seeping out like sand through cupped hands. What an interesting contradiction to mold itself into one entity. A true muse, something worth erecting statues of or ballads to. Something to worship. Yellow. Blue. The sea and the sky. Dangerous, foreign things floating in depths so deep compression kills, but there is light, somewhere above. Waiting.

"Is there something you need, taichou?" Asks Izuru, he sets his quill down and stares at Rose with dead eyes the air around them vibrates with color, it's like a painting Rose can see but can't quite capture. He often does this, looks too long trying to hold the moment and Izuru has noticed and Izuru is not amused but he deals with it because he's not comfortable enough, just yet, to tell Rose exactly what's on his mind (something snarky, maybe, something unabashedly cruel.)

Rose plucks a string on his guitar and it is orange.

"Taichou?" Yellow. Rose plays another note and it is red. Red, yellow, orange. He'll call it Sunsets. He'll call it Izuru.

Izuru sighs, returns to his work and begins again. The sign is blue the scratch of quill on paper is purple and the scene is coming together. Blue purple - the sea. Orange, red, yellow - the sky. And Izuru is the angler fish, enticing and mean and Rose is the artist. The music comes easy and flows between them in waves of sound and color and the scratch of the quill and the light breathing of Izuru which is just loud enough to come out royal-colored. Rose won't close his eyes, won't miss a single moment of the melding noises. He's looking hard at Izuru.

"Taichou," says Izuru, again. Yellow.

* * *

 _Original author's note: I don't have Synesthesia, and I don't know of anyone with it either. But when I was about 10 I read a book called "A Mango Shaped Space" and I don't know why I was thinking about it the other day, but I was. I imagine it's conceivably possible that Rose could be a synesthetes, and that it would drive him to always want to be around Izuru._


	5. Among the Roses (Shuuhei and Momo)

**5\. Among the Roses  
**

 _Shuuhei, Momo, Rangiku and Nanao  
_

* * *

On the edge of sleep, Shuuhei can hear the faint call of something wind-like and ambient and it is whispering once-forgotten things in his ear so that he can think of nothing else. He feels disjointed from himself, as if he is out there, somewhere, maddened by grief and fighting to escape a prison of bone. But Shuuhei is tangible, here, laying on hard floor, thinking the world is beautiful and dreaming all the worst of it.

The sensation of missing something is odd and unpleasant; Shuuhei wants nothing of it, can't get away, the world is gray but solid, and yet still, it feels as though the ground is sand and everything is sand, and his hands are cupped trying to hold something beautiful but it's sand, too; how far will he sink before something is firm beneath his feet again?

Feeling uneasy and restless, Shuuhei grabs something warm and Kazeshini, and is out the door, headed in no particular direction, and thinking no particular thoughts.

Izuru is likely asleep, Renji, too. He's not in high enough spirits to crash the ninth's drinking night so he steers clear of the bar just outside of the division. He reaches out for someone familiar, feels Momo in the light and airy way Momo exists. She is near the fifth which is understandable and Shuuhei grins vaguely because they haven't seen one another in awhile.

He steps into flash and steps out on to the fifth's front courtyard. He can feel Momo beneath a tree near a water feature in the back. He is surprised to see that Nanao and Rangiku are there as well, and has half a mind to turn away but Momo catches his eye, smiles too brightly, and he knows that he is always welcome with her. Momo knows the world is maddeningly ambiguous, and chooses to love in spite of it; it is the worst disposition a solider could possibly have, but Momo is wiser than he is, and she knows the dangers of forgiveness. And she knows the wisdom of happiness.

"Hello there," she says, smiling.

"You look really messed up," says Rangiku, and Nanao smiles faintly, her eyes sharper than a sword, and chooses to say nothing.

"I just woke up," says Shuuhei, lying easily – he's gotten fairly good at it as of late.

"We keep these conversations among the roses," says Nanao, her voice even but laced with something unexpectedly kind, "you can talk freely." Shuuhei grins when he sits, cross-legged beside her.

"… I don't think I want to," he responds.

"Suit yourself," Rangiku smiles, oddly subdued, "you can listen, then, party pooper – we're telling the stories of our first meetings with our captains."

"Rangiku has just been telling us about how she torments Toshirou," Momo giggles.

"Pay back for how he tortured you," Rangiku winks; they share a look which Shuuhei and Nanao will never truly be able to understand, which is fine by them both. Shuuhei is indifferent toward the young captain and Nanao is giving nothing of her opinion; though it is widely known that between the two of them, order is somehow found. The soul society is always floating just above administrative hell. If either of them takes a day off, everything will surely fall apart.

"Who's next?" Rangiku smiles, too broadly, a jug of something is in front of her and she takes a sip from it. Shuuhei is surprised to find is smells like apple juice, which is a poor substitute for what it normally carries. Nanao raises her hand and then pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

"My meeting with Captain Kyoraku was rather boring," she begins, shocking everyone who is listening, she smiles faintly and her eyes flicker up, as if recounting a faraway memory, "I was not very old … about eight, at the time. He met me with all the new recruits in my class – there were ten of us, two of whom were very pretty women. We, the other eight, were dismissed with pleasant words and left to the attention of Vice captain Lisa, I was not particularly outspoken or interested in making an acquaintance of my captain, so I said nothing to him," Nanao pauses briefly, and then says: "Truthfully, I'd known at the time that the captain was taking me in at someone's request, but he rarely looked me in the eye my first few years there, and I was never particularly loyal to him … if Lisa hadn't been there, I would have likely transferred rather quickly. But Lisa … I would have given my life for Lisa. She was everything to me."

"When did you and your captain become so close?" Asks Momo, innocently enough.

"After Lisa disappeared," says Nanao, who has never used the word hollow when talking about any of the vizards, and who has likely been in communication with Lisa for years. She seemed the least surprised by their return. "… I imagine it had a lot to do with guilt; but we're good for each other."

"Well, at least you're good for him," Rangiku laughs. Nanao hides a grin behind her fan and snaps it shut just as quickly.

"Me next!" Momo smiles, leaning forward to grab the group's attention. "I'll start with Captain Aizen,"

Shuuhei is taken back by how non-responsive both of the other women are. Even Shuuhei does not openly speak of Tousen, who did far less to him than Aizen did to Momo. He opens his mouth, to tell her it's not necessary, but Rangiku catches him out of her peripheral and gives a wink like this is normal. And maybe it is; Shuuhei is not sure how long the three have been meeting; and the meeting itself has an oddly peaceful feel to it.

"I was still in the academy," says Momo, reflecting, the ghost of a smile, from so long ago, flits across her lips, "I saw him walking out of the courtyard; he had the grace of a prince and his smile was so kind and his voice was so smooth. He was too good to be true … But we all know that now," she stops herself there, for a second she is very quiet and the silence is reflective, not judging, "Captain Hirako was much different," she shifts, abruptly, her eyes brighter than fire. Shuuhei can tell she's avoiding bad memories, and the way Rangiku and Nanao each busy their hands (Rangiku takes another sip from her jug; Nanao pulls at the edges of her uniform, to release the wrinkles) makes Shuuhei think they are all trying to appear as though they haven't noticed.

"What about Captain Hirako?" says Shuuhei.

"The first time we met he was upside down," says Momo with a smile.

Shuuhei hasn't felt free in awhile, the world plagues him and Kazeshini haunts him, but in the fifth he feels like he's home, and his friends are giggling, sharing stories. Momo asks him about the newspaper and Nanao recommends a book and Rangiku, for no reason, throws herself over his shoulder and kisses his cheek, but no one asks him to speak and no one expects him to either – and it is happiness, in it's way.

"You're smiling!" says Momo, surprising him, and so he is.


	6. Color and Hue (Izuru and Rose)

**6\. Color and Hue  
**

 _Izuru and Rose  
_

* * *

The days bleed, and the days bleed into each other and the sickly-sweet stain of red is vibrant in the sunset sky and in the veins of vessels just barely holding themselves together.

Izuru is drinking too much coffee and sleeping too many hours. He doesn't pretend to be okay, he's not particularly not okay, either. When Rose comes to him in the evening to play music Izuru lets it happen around him and it's … There's something about the companionship … even when they don't say a word. Maybe one day, he thinks, maybe one days but maybe not, too.

"Do you like flowers?" Rose asks, his voice is melodic and soothing. If not for the faint pulse of taint that is a hollow, he would evaporate into the essence of softer things; the color of glass, probably. Izuru shrugs noncommittally, because he has never really thought about it much.

"Hmm," Rose hums, and that's the end of it. The music Rose plays isn't soft; it's generally pretty jarring. At 2 in the morning, the division members throw an egg at Izuru's window and Rose leaves with a huff, feathers ruffled.

When Izuru sleeps alone in his bed he can almost touch Gin, touching him. It's a hateful kind of need … Rose would be different, but there's a friction between the want and the walk away. Izuru likes to hurt without being hurt. A betrayal is a betrayal is a betrayal and Izuru knows that Rose wants the love when he wants everything. Of course he does.

The next morning Izuru wakes up to roses on his doorstep, a ghost of a smile on his lips. The vase is blown glass, sickly sweet strands of red.

* * *

 _I keep on telling myself to be frugal in my posting - posting too quickly messes with the stats of the story as a whole, and generally makes it less likely to be viewed ... But I can't help ..._

 _Also, thank you to those of you have reviewed; everyone has been exceedingly kind! And a special thanks to_ mama juice _\- I appreciate all of your reviews and have grinned reading them ... since I had no way of responding, I thought I'd throw a quick hello your way from here!_


	7. Ward (Shuuhei and Kensei)

**7\. Ward**

 _Shuuhei and Kensei_

* * *

'I just needed to see if I could,' said Shuuhei, his hands clenched fists at his sides. Kensei's rage rang silent and volatile; a monster coiled and ready to spring, but he held it back with deep breaths. His brow was furrowed with the effort of it.

'Are you trying to kill yourself, Hisagi?' Kensei growled, 'I don't get it. You've got all these brains and this raw, stupid talent…' The muscles of Kensei's back tensed, as if he might punch something, and then relaxed, '…you're fucking reckless.'

'You can't give me this, captain. _You_ , of all people, can't tell me I'm reckless,' said Shuuhei, his voice eerily quiet, his eyes dull and far away.

'I know where to draw the line, kid,' Kensei bit, 'I know my _limits_.' Kensei's shoulders shook with his restraint and Shuuhei would have given an arm, gladly, to be anywhere else. He didn't want to see his captain, he just wanted … He just …

'I was told you were responsible,' said Kensei, 'I was told you were hard working, smart and reliable. What happened to you?'

'People change,' said Shuuhei.

'No, I don't believe that,' growled Kensei. Shuuhei bit the inside of his cheek to keep from flinching away. 'People change them…' Kensei looked hard at Shuuhei, his eyes searching, and then he turned his back and walked out of the room and the fourth and the conversation. Shuuhei's body, taut with defiance, collapsed in spite of him, like a snapped rubber band, and it hurt like hell to slump back into the bed, but it would have been so much worse had Kensei seen.


	8. Battle of Wills (Nanao)

**8\. Battle of Wills**

 _Nanao and Shinken Hakkyōken (and Shunsui)_

* * *

If she plays the game, she wonders. If she plays the game and hides the fear and bares the sword and dies. What if she dies? Nanao looks vaguely at the woods around her. Her head aches and her arm is throbbing and blistered to the elbow - a poorly constructed and highly concentrated kido backfired, quite literally, and ate it's way up her arm, licking the skin with an angry blister as it went. Nanao tries not to concentrate on it too much, there are worse things that could have happened.

Sleeping in the heavy brush of the foliage is also uncomfortable. She has scrapes down her legs from the awkward angles in rest and a gash across her back from where she was thrown into a wait-a-minute bush the other day. Still, when she stands she hides all of this because she is a solider and a good solider does not dwell on things that cannot be changed.

It is that and that alone which stops her from looking over her shoulder too frequently, from thinking of her captain and their squad, hopefully still asleep in the early morning. She has been gone two weeks and she wonders at their vitality - if they are holding together without her. A selfish part of her hopes her absence has made it difficult on them; she hopes she served a purpose in their success. The more reasonable and larger part of her prays that her absence has changed nothing and that they are getting on as they always have.

Her zanpakuto is at her side, in the sash of her hakuma, blunted and useless, stolen from her captain. She runs her hand over it's silk and curses its curse and then she begins the day.

Left hand raised, right hand on her zanpakuto's hilt, her eyes light with fire and she calls forth the spirit. He giggles, devilish and muted, but does not come to her. Nanao brings the palm of her left hand to her sternum and sends the lightning kido through her chest, into her spirit, shocking them both. She feels him shudder with the pain of it. Come out, she wills him, but he is resistant. Her hair is down, blowing around her in the breeze. Her glasses are on top of her head, holding her bangs out of her face and her forehead is damp with sweat.

"Come out!" She yells, sending another bolt through them.

* * *

Kyoraku is not fairing well. He feels her everywhere. She is using so much spiritual pressure she cannot hide it, so instead she has dispersed it. He is so attuned to her that he can't ignore it, and he doesn't want to. She is coming at him from all directions, he can't pin point her but he can feel her pain like a tack puncturing a single nerve in his mind. It is maddening.

"She knows her limits," Ukitake says kindly, but there is a waver in his voice like he isn't so sure himself, which is almost worse than if he had said nothing at all.

"I'm not worried that she doesn't know them," Kyoraku says, "I'm worried she doesn't care about them." He takes a pull of wine and tries to be relaxed. After all, it is a beautiful day.


	9. One Day (Shinji and Momo)

**9\. One Day**

 _Shinji and Momo_

* * *

Momo is twice as sweet as the fruit which shares her name. Shinji wraps an arm around her shoulder as they walk, she's told him this is okay, but she still twitches a little and he can tell her first instinct is to recoil. It might not have always been that way. It's possible that Momo was an entirely different person before the catastrophe that was Aizen. But the again, maybe the essence of a person is immovable. After all, Shinji himself has only changed in how he approaches the world, and not necessarily how he approaches himself. Momo is probably just the same. He flashes her a toothy smile, gives a light squeeze and then drops his arm.

"Good morning, captain," says Momo, politely, she smiles but her eyes are unsteady and flashing like she's not quite awake.

"Mornin', vice-captain," says Shinji, "you're runnin' a bit late, aren't ya?" He grins when she squeaks.

"Well, I was helping Izuru with something," trails Momo, "I was going to work through lunch to make up the lost time."

Momo watches her captain closely and bites her lip when his smile falls into something like a frown … If not for the fact that his teeth are still showing. They are always showing. Momo has had dreams of dark corridors where all she sees is the teeth of this captain's smile and all she hears is the bitter laugh of the previous one, but they're just dreams and Captain Hirako has been nothing but kind, if not ridiculous and a bit unusual… Characteristics which are, at this point, basic features of all the vizards.

"Why would'ya do that?" Her captain asks, he looks genuinely confused and Momo is confused for it.

"To make up for the lost time?" Momo says, unsure. And then her captain stops and she turns to face him.

A long, uncomfortable pause follows them before captain Hirako lets out a laugh; short and maybe a little condescending but Momo has lived her whole life proving people wrong and these types of laughs do not bother her anymore. "A good vice-captain wouldn't leave her work unfinished!" She says.

"I don' know about that," Shinji mumbles, "I know some pretty good vice-captains that barely do any work at all…" Without either of them saying so, Momo knows that they are both thinking of Rangiku. He gives her a wink and she laughs faintly and when they continue walking Momo feels less like she's been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

At noon, captain Hirako locks the office and wanders off before Momo can ask him for the keys back in. She's not naive enough to believe it is an unintentional move, but she's fairly certain that if she asked for them back, he'd give in. Momo has been told by Rangiku that captain Hirako doesn't know how to act around her, apparently she is not as brash as he's used to and he hasn't quite figured out an approach to her. This is better for her because it puts them on an even playing ground and right now, Momo will take every advantage she can get.

Momo is also a little more on top of things than captain Hirako gives her credit for and after she jiggles the door nob once more for good measure, she walks to the reception desk and to their fifth seat and asks for the papers she gave him earlier. The fifth seat gives them over with a formal bow.

Momo doesn't need Captain Hirako's unwavering interest, nor does she love his suspicions. She can feel his eyes on her, unyielding and open, he is probably trying to see if he can make her uncomfortable. She wonders which will be more incriminating: to be unbothered by it at all, or to be too bothered by it. She feels like she is always being tested.

It's unfair though, to accuse him when she has kept him at arms length on everything. It's visible in their company's resent fissure; those who have accepted Captain Hirako and those who have sworn they will protect Momo.

Momo knows that she isn't a solider because she's high on honor and morality, even when she is. The truth it, honor and morality make for a poor solider. She has seen the effectiveness of cruelty and precision, she cannot be that person, but she is still a solider for whatever reasons make her a good one (cunning, Nanao says, genius, Kira tells her), and she does not want to be protected. It's her job to serve, and her pleasure to protect what is precious. She has talked to her company without Captain Hirako's presence in the morning, to tell them that she is a big girl and that they should always take pride in their captain, until circumstances prove otherwise. They listen to her because they love her, and they know she is worth listening to.

If it is protectiveness for their vice-captain which will make them listen to her, Momo knows that it is just a good reason as any. It is politics, in a way … and she wants to like the captain, too. She wants the company to be a family again.

Momo stops writing because her hand is shaking. The wind in the courtyard is lessened by its walls, but the papers around her still flap a little under the rock she has placed over them. The form in her lap, held stationary by a clipboard, has drops of something watery on them. Momo sets her pen down so she can touch her cheek and she is surprised that she is crying. It happens sometimes, usually when she is asleep. Lately, when she daydreams, it sneaks out too, like her soul demands to have an audience to its pain.

"Oh look," Captain Hirako calls, Momo brushes away any remnants of water and glances up to see her captain swaggering across the courtyard, "a peach!" he grins and it is comforting and disconcerting at once. When he's close enough, he bends at the waist like a straw and his face is almost even with hers despite still standing. "You cover all of your bases," he observes, his eyes scanning her paperwork.  
"I didn't mean to disobey you," says Momo, her voice doesn't waver at all, "but I have some paperwork that needs to get done today."

"If I got upset overtime someone disobeyed me," Shinji says, his smiles wider now, it looks almost painful in its intensity, "I'd have died of an aneurysm a century ago."

"That sounds really painful," Momo smiles.

"Yeah," says Shinji, "mostly in my ass." His smile drops as if remembering something. Momo thinks he's probably got a thousand stories about the vizards. One day, she'd like to hear them. For a moment he watches her again, and she gets that feeling, like he's waiting for her to stab him, but then he stands again. Towering and lanky and almost goofy.

"Do you like music, Momo?" he asks, suddenly. Momo is feeling off kilter.

"I guess," she says quietly, remembering. "Aizen-taichou used to play music in the office sometimes … really quite stuff, he said it would help us stay focused." She wants to drop the honorific but she can't just yet and she is not ashamed, even when Shinji flashes her a look that is almost disapproving, or at least as close as he's likely to get to it.

"Aizen had really shitty taste," he gags, "I'm talking about real music, Ella Fitzgerald?" he asks hopefully, Momo says nothing and Shinji looks personally offended. "Let's go dacin' then, we'll call it training."

"I don't think the captain commander will approve," Momo says. Captain Hirako winks.

"The cap'n commander owes me 150 years of debt, so I don't care." He offers her a hand and Momo takes it, after gathering all of her paperwork.

Momo feels his hollow through his skin, nasty and evil and simmering, wrapped in his own spiritual pressure kept at bay by training and it cannot touch him, even when it is him. Momo knows he can feel her too, the hurt and distress and hope just under the tips of her fingers, he's watching her and feeling for it at the same time. It is the first time she does not think he is waiting for her to betray him, and it is the first time she does not feel betrayed in her own way.

She'd like to feel him out like this, palms pressed together between corny jokes and music history. Captain Hirako knows jazz like it his name and Momo knows how to be sweet in the realest way. Dancing might be fun.


	10. Dead Man Walking (Izuru and Rose)

**10\. Dead Man Walking**

 _Izuru and Rose_

* * *

Izuru doesn't sleep anymore. That's not the real problem, but sometimes it feels like it's the only problem there is. Izuru doesn't sleep because apathy eats him.

Izuru doesn't sleep because the rats of the past have made a nest of straw and used syringes somewhere in the cavity of a hollowed chest that was probably his at some point. It's just a thing now. The hand, the body, the mind, just things — used and neglected and overlooked. At one point, a million years ago, Izuru would have done anything to ensure he lived. _One more day._ He remembers thinking it: one more day, he remembers the plea. The same plea every night, like a prayer but much more desperate and to no one but himself, a long, long time ago. Every night. It was clockwork.

Who will fight but the desperately vital? Heart lines on a monitor; Shuuhei, Momo, Renji, the captains, all breathing all thinking. They'll make it.

When Izuru moves his arm it scrapes against itself and the sound is enough to make a person cringe but he does it again, and again and again, feeling nothing at all. So he's not a person and he's not a monster and he's not … what? If a person is what he isn't then what?

Izuru doesn't sleep anymore because Mayuri wills it that way. What creation sleeps? Izuru doesn't sleep anymore because the heart doesn't need the break, because the skin won't heal, Izuru doesn't sleep because he is a dead man, walking into a battle field to fight a fight that's no longer his.

 _If there is a god, it will kill him._

And if there isn't, it will feel the way dying feels a thousand times and every time will be the ecstasy of anticipation.

* * *

 _I'll say, this is one of my personal favorites; is that an odd thing to say about something you've written?_


	11. Quiet Moments (Rose and Izuru)

**11\. Quiet Moments**

 _Rose and Izuru_

* * *

Rose runs his thumb across the high bone of Izuru's cheek - where the rough skin of the cheek meets the soft skin of the under eye, purple with a lack of sleep and too much sleep. Izuru is watching him with something that is not disinterest and Rose gives him a fond smile for it before dropping his hand. The street is quiet and tranquil but Izuru can feel the hollow there, nasty, grotesque, everything that Rose is not. Izuru is not ungrateful for Rose, but he wishes it were the hollow instead. Hollows think less and Rose has such an inquisitive mind … Izuru curls his hand at his side and squeezes tight enough for his short nails to bite the flesh there. What could Rose do to him, he wonders. What would Rose stop him from doing.

Rose is a delicate kind of touchy and he comes at Izuru in grand and open gestures, half expecting Izuru to stop him, and always half surprised when he doesn't. Rose gets the sense that Izuru cares very little for intervention. Rose gets the sense that Izuru would let the world burn around him if no order directed him to stop it. Rose gets the sense that Izuru would let the world burn _him_ , and it's not a comforting thought at all.

* * *

 _It's been a minute since I've added to this; I think I'm going to post three today. ;) As always, reviews are much loved._


	12. The Art of Decay (Izuru Rose and Gin)

**12\. The Art of Decay**

 _Izuru (and Rose and Gin)_

* * *

It is hellish for Izuru to wait for the day when the world will collapse and shatter around him. Even Rose, who plays beautifully and speaks beautifully, cannot possibly fix the crumbling remains of reality. _It hurts_ to miss Gin. It is agonizing to wish for him to return and to know how maddening unhealthy it is and then also to not give a fuck. It is dependency and it is addiction and Izuru can't make it go away when he claws at his thighs until they bruise - long and angry and evident - can't stop thinking about his life; can't smile, can't cry. Izuru can not–

He is not even sure what he _can_ do anymore. Everything has the odd sensation of being chalky - hard to touch and repulsive. So Izuru sleeps a lot and Izuru has days where he does not leave his bed and he has made murals in his mind on the white walls of a sterile home waiting for the pain to pass, hoping it never leaves. This is what it is like to ache for the demented and the cruel; and perhaps it is what dying can be like too. A slow decay and withering away.


	13. Stagnant (Shuuhei and Izuru)

**13\. Stagnant**

 _Shuuhei (and Izuru)_

* * *

It's not necessarily that Hisagi is afraid. He comes out of his nightmares eerily still, his fingers knitted over his stomach, looking up at the sterile, white ceiling. It's easy to be swept up in fear, to be controlled by the demons in the walls, the flesh, they walk along beside him, invisible to everyone else … But Hisagi - Hisagi sees everything.

The world is all very still, even with a flurry of people and things, it doesn't move much. He noticed when he murdered his captain, Tousen, the air only moved when Kazeshini moved it, the ground was still, the trees were still. Even Muguruma taichou, across the battlefield was nothing at all – a silent blur of action against a stagnant earth.

Izuru knows it best, his world has slowed so much that he only recognizes a thing, now, after it's happened. A crow out his window is only a crow when the memory of that crow reminds him. He's missed something … Again. Rose puts a hand on his shoulder, for comfort, but Izuru only feels the warmth of the action in the wake of Rose's departure, so it is nostalgia before it was ever happiness.

It's not necessarily that Hisagi is afraid … It's like trying to remember what fear means.


End file.
